Is this the oldest Easter Egg in Ireland?

By: Louise Walsh

A Meath woman has held onto a much treasured Easter Egg given to her by her dad, just a few months before he died - 45 years ago.

Dolores McMahon (59) is now challenging a claim to have Ireland's oldest Easter Egg - after a Louth man believed his 40 year old egg was the most aged in the country earlier this week.

The Navan lady laughs that her hand-made egg is 'well-travelled but not yet hatched,' having brought it with her when she moved from her home in Nobber to Dublin and then back to Meath when she got married.

Dolores and Hugh carefully unwrap the 45 year-old chocolate egg

Well-known Dolores, who has worked in Tunney Opticians in Navan for the last 27 years says that despite the egg going a bit 'mouldy', she can't bring herself to get rid of it.

"I was 14 years of age and my mum and dad gave me this amazing Easter Egg.  In 1973, the eggs were very plain and there wasn't much choice but this one was in a beautiful box and the chocolate egg, which was in a clear, hard cellophane wrapping, had iced flowers on it," she said.

"I remember thinking it was so beautiful that I couldn't eat it so I held onto it and I wrote on the inside of the box - the date of 1973 and that it was given to me by my parents, Bridie and Jack McEntee.

"As the weeks passed, the egg was moved onto a shelf in my wardrobe but I knew at that stage I wasn't going to eat it, because God only knows what was growing on it.

"I don't know how it escalated. The days turned into weeks, then months and it was still there.

"Then my dad died four months later and it became even more sentimental, in that it was the last Easter Egg he gave me."

When Dolores moved to work in Dublin, the egg came with her and then back to Navan when she got married to Hugh, where it was put on display in a cabinet.

"It's a well-travelled egg that has yet to be hatched," she chuckled.

"All my nieces and nephews and even my own daughter think it's mad that I held onto it for so long, but it's a great talking point.  I've threatened so many times to put it in the wheelie bin, but I can't bring myself to do it.

"It's still in the original hard plastic and you can see it has gone off a bit - kind of like half-melted chocolate."

Earlier this week, Louth man John Gartlan believed his 40 year old egg was possibly the oldest in Ireland - but Dolores has knocked that claim off the perch by five years with her eggstremely old egg

"I don't know if it's the oldest but it's certainly up there," she added.